Own less. Live more. Finding minimalism in a world of consumerism.

A-List Blogging Bootcamp with Leo Babauta & Mary Jaksch

As many of you know, Leo Babauta is one of the leading thinkers and writers in the Minimalist/Simplicity movement. And he has been for many years. His writing has influenced my life greatly in this area.

As others of you know, Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch are some of the leading thinkers and writers in how to effectively market a blog/website and make a living online. And they have been for many years. Their influence has definitely made me a better writer.

Because of their expertise and experience, Leo Babauta (Zen Habits) and Mary Jaksch (Write to Done) – along with some of their friends – are able to offer one of the leading Online Training Seminars in how to set up your blog for success being offered today.

If you are interested in quitting your day job (or at least creating another income stream to make life better), you may be interested in registering for the A-List Blogging Bootcamp. The Bootcamp runs from May 16-20, 2010. And registration opened today.

Joshua, thanks for posting that link. I’ve just downloaded and read the report and it’s very cool. Leo’s story is quite interesting. I remember visiting his blog way back when he first started. His success has been amazing!

@Isarian: They are sentence fragments, but there’s no hard-and-fast rule on using them. Hard news stories, no. Features stories and minimalist blogs, yes … well, most of time. It depends on context, and as a professional copy editor, I think the way Joshua uses them is fine.

For those of you are newbies or seasoned bloggers out there may want to get a feel about a 5-day blow-and-whistle Alist Blogger Bootcamps. Well, I have just completed its 5-day botcamps starting August 8, 2010 to August 12, 2010. This bootcamp even has an endorsement from Darren of Problogger. I just wonder if Darren himself had gone through this bootcamp or had been given an opportunity to look at the entire course or not. Being having gone through this bootcamp myself, I think I want to provide you an overall picture of this course. Honestly.

First, the price. $285 for 5 days or $57/day. To me it’s more expensive than an academic course offering by a higher institution. For an online course offering by a noted university, it costs $5000 for 6 months (180 days) , which is $27/day. One can even enroll in a course with edu2go with only $100 for 6 weeks. I guess given the content of the course, somewhere between $50 to $100 is the most appropriate, at least given the currently deteriorating global economy. It’s really not worth $57 a day.

Now let’s go into the heart of the course, the content. The user interface is somewhat clumsy and cluttering, It seems to me that the course instructional designer has no extensive experience about how to design an effective online course. It’s not just throwing a bunch of text, video, audio, and set up a forum for discussion is good enough. Pedagogical method must have taken into picture to provide the best learning experience for variety of learning styles.
The course has 3 components: text, video, text, and a forum. First, the text. The text page has no print button for those who want to print out to keep it for later reference. There is a photo of the author or a snap on the text. It takes time to download the entire page for those who have slow bandwidth. From the standpoint of instructional design, there is no need to upload a photo of an author or unrelated snap on the page because it does not have anything to do with the content. And there is no need to inspire learners by putting up a story of how Mary accidentally became a blogger.
And another, 02 How a Passionate Artist Fulfilled Her Dream of Teaching An E-Course, which talked about Amelia Critchlow of 101 Bird Tales. Those stories have been spreading all over the web. I have the feeling that the producers of Ablist Bootcamp lack of good materials to put them on, so they they figured out by filing out these superfluous articles. Come on, don’t you have any valued material for learners?

Next, video. The video is embedded onto the page itself using Camtasia. It does not have a download button so that learners can download to watch it later on iPod, iPhone. Only one video has transcript, the rest has not. Some video clips even take almost 25 minutes to watch. It’s a waste of learners’ time forcing them to sit in front of PCs to watch these videos that one can find everywhere easily. One of the videos was how to use autoresponder Aweber. Is that necessary for learners who paid $285 to learn how to use Aweber? There are a ton of free Aweber tutorials out there. Learners would tortured himself/herself “ Do I really want to learn Aweber paying my hard earned $285.? Or videos about how to make a podcast. Just go to Apple related website and you can find tons and tons on how to make a podcast. Video clips are good tools when dealing with something that text and audio alone cannot fulfill their functions; otherwise they waste learners’ precious time? Time is money, right?

Lastly, there is one audio clip on Why Email Lists Are Powerful: Interview with Dave Navarro [PODCAST]. No transcript. People now are smart to be aware of how important to have a list. Do we really need this podcast? I wonder.

The forum: I almost did not see Leo on the forum. A bunch of learners asked themselves and tried to educate each other. As I said, the user interface really got into the way of the process of learning, and the forum is not an exception. Hey, is it expensive to hire a first-class instructional designer?

In summary, to me at least, I wasted my money that I sweat everyday to earn. Why? Because I can find these materials, video, and audio, and get into free forum ( Warrior) to ask questions and have generous folks to give me answers. The bootcamps itself violates almost the essential of designing an online course. I do not want to declare it a scam because I believe Leo and Mary have put a great deal of efforts into the course and tried to figured out how to provide the best learning experience to their subscribers. They just do not have experience and adequate education about online learning.
Day 1
Masterclass Day 1 video and audio
01 Introduction to Create Courses that Sell
02 How a Passionate Artist Fulfilled Her Dream of Teaching An E-Course [CASE STUDY]
03 The Accidental Entrepreneur: Mary’s Story [CASE STUDY]
04 How Going from Blogging to Bootcamps Changed My Life: Leo’s Story [CASE STUDY]
05 From Passion to Product [WORKBOOK]

Day 2
The material of Day 2 will show you how to create an asset through building an email list. You’ll learn why that’s crucial if you want to make money from blogging.
Questions from the Day 2 Masterclass: Recordings
06 Why Building a List is Crucial For Future Income
07 Jeff Walker: Why an Email List is an Asset [VIDEO]
08 Why Email Lists Are Powerful: Interview with Dave Navarro [PODCAST]
09 How to Set Up a List on Aweber [VIDEO]
10 The Good Karma List Machine
11 Good Karma List Machine: Installation [VIDEO]
12 Good Karma List Machine – Admin Setup [VIDEO]
Day 3
In the material of Day 3, you’ll learn about the importance of launches – and exactly how to do them. Don’t miss the Unit 13 video – it’s inspiring!
MASTERCLASS Day 3 recording
13 How a Broke Guy Stumbled Upon Launch Secrets and Got Rich [VIDEO]
14 How to Create a Launch with Heart: 5 Tips that Increased Membership by 470% in 4 Days
15 How to Create a Short Sales Page (PDF)
16 A-List Blogging: The Launch Swipefile PDF
17 The 4 Day Cash Machine Launch E-mail Swipe File
Setting up and running successful courses is easier than you think. The Day 4 material will show you how to set up courses quickly and simply.
Day 4

Recorded MASTERCLASS with Leo Babauta
18 The Three Essentials for Creating Successful Courses [VIDEO]
19 The Three Crucial Ingredients of Successful Courses [TRANSCRIPT]
20 How a Scrapbooker Created Successful Courses With Small Numbers and Organic Growth [CASE STUDY]
21 How to Start Making Real Money With Your Products in 3 Days [PDF]
22 How to Structure a Module – Part 1 [TIPSHEET]
23 How to Structure Modules – Part 2 [CASE STUDY
24 Camtasia: the Magic Software for Creating Training Videos [ARTICLE PLUS 4 HOW-TO VIDEOS]
25 Camtasia In Action – How to Grow a Killer Blog [VIDEO]
26 How to Create a Podcast – Part 1 [VIDEO]
27 How to Create Podcasts – Part 2 [VIDEO]
28 Amazon S3: How to Rent Cheap Online Storage Space for Media

Day 5
In this module, you’ll learn about Membership Programs. Why to create them, how to set them up, and how to run them.
Recording of Mary’s Masterclass
29 Why Membership Programs Rock
30 Membership Programs: Challenges and Joys
31 Introduction to Membership Software
32 Toolkit for Creating Courses and Membership Programs
33 How to Use Wishlist Member – Part 1: Modular Model [VIDEO]
34 How to Use Wishlist – Part 2: The Publisher Model [VIDEO]
35 Creating a Forum: How to Use the Simple:Press Plugin
36 Boost Your Success with Affiliate Programs